My daughter is always clarifying statements and asking questions because she needs things to be unambiguous. I think this is a great trait, except for those times when I don’t have a definitive answer or when I am unsure of something. This reminds me of a joke I heard:
I was at a funeral of a friend of mine. His wife asked everyone to say a quick word, so I stood up, cleared my throat, choked back my tears and said “Plethora”.
“Thank you,” his wife said. “That means ‘a lot’.”
The next man stands up and says “Earth.”
“Thank you,” the widow says. “That means ‘the world’.”
Another guy gets up and says “Water hole.” and sits back down.
The widow thanks him and says “I know you meant ‘well’.”
Another guy stands up and says “totality.”
The widow utters “Thank you, that means ‘everything’.”
A woman gets up and says “Underestimate.”
To which the widow replies “Thank you, that means ‘more than you know’.”
The last guy stands up and says “Bargain.”
The widow says “Thank you. That means ‘a great deal’.”
In big cross-functional teams, acronyms, abbreviations, jargon, systems, software, and processes pile up fast. For the people who use them daily, it’s just normal conversation, but for everyone else, it can sound like alphabet soup. That’s why, whether you’re teaming up with another department, looping in a vendor, or onboarding someone new, be like the widow and clarify when someone uses terminology that might not be common knowledge.